


Tell Me What I Want to Know (How to Win a Man in Seven Days)

by dannyPURO



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Blow Jobs, Enjolras Is Bad At Communicating, Enjolras's Weird Behavior, Failed Courtship Rituals, First Time, Grantaire Being An Idiot, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 08:18:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19353088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dannyPURO/pseuds/dannyPURO
Summary: Grantaire is beginning to feel like he’s simply going to be confused forever.Not for no reason, mind. He’s not normally this useless. Normally, he can totally cope with whatever, for the most part. He can cope with the way Enjolras sometimes gets so harsh at meetings, and he can cope with the fact that he himself is seemingly unable to restrain himself from escalating the situation. He can cope with the kind-of-shitty job that he’s working right now to fund both his painting and his brunching. He can cope with the fact that he had to return his foster kittens the other day.He can cope with the fact that he’s been in love with Enjolras--completely, hopelessly in love with him--for, like, ever.What he apparently cannot cope with is whatever Enjolras has been doing recently. Namely, being weird.





	Tell Me What I Want to Know (How to Win a Man in Seven Days)

Grantaire is beginning to feel like he’s simply going to be confused forever. 

Not for no reason, mind. He’s not normally this useless. Normally, he can totally cope with whatever, for the most part. He can cope with the way Enjolras sometimes gets so harsh at meetings, and he can cope with the fact that he himself is seemingly unable to restrain himself from escalating the situation. He can cope with the kind-of-shitty job that he’s working right now to fund both his painting and his brunching. He can cope with the fact that he had to return his foster kittens the other day.

He can cope with the fact that he’s been in love with Enjolras--completely, hopelessly in love with him--for, like, ever. 

What he apparently cannot cope with is whatever Enjolras has been doing recently. Namely, being  _ weird.  _ More specifically, well…

Well, Enjolras has started  _ spending time with him.  _ Not just at meetings, not just with Combeferre and Courfeyrac and Jehan, not just in passing. Serious, actual time. Just the other day, he’d shown up at Grantaire’s door with muffins. Homemade, lemon and poppy seed muffins. Grantaire didn’t even know that Enjolras made muffins. Hell, he didn’t even know that Enjolras  _ ate  _ muffins. 

(That last bit’s a lie. Grantaire knows a lot about Enjolras, including but not limited to his favorite type of muffin--banana nut. Not lemon and poppy seed--that’s Grantaire’s.)

And on Sunday, Enjolras had followed Grantaire around town all day. He’d shown up in the morning, looking oddly determined and oddly well-dressed, and had then proceeded to join Grantaire for brunch, and coffee, and dinner, all of which he’d paid for. And on Tuesday, Enjolras had convinced him along to the orchestra--they’d sat close to the stage in the good seats and Enjolras had told him, in a hushed whisper, all about Shostakovich. And on Wednesday, he’d--well, that was the muffin day. And on Friday--just this very morning--Enjolras had dropped by with a potted daffodil and a strange flush at his cheeks.

So, yeah. Things are weird.

Grantaire stares at his daffodil plant and Enjolras’s weird painted glass tupperware and lets out a long, pained groan. See, if he’d had the sense to fall for somebody normal, he wouldn’t have to deal with any of this. He could just pine away in peace and not have to worry about whatever the hell any of this means. 

This is ridiculous.

He calls Bossuet. 

Joly picks up. “R!” he says, bright and a little distracted. “R, you’re on speaker.”

Grantaire lets out another groan. “Who’s with you?”

“Boss. Chetta. Chetta’s napping, though.”

Bossuet chimes in, slightly further away. “Grantaire! What’s poppin’?”

Grantaire fiddles with one of the daffodils, huffs. “Not much, right now. Not much is poppin’. Listen, do you want to go out tonight?”

Bossuet says, “Sure,” just as Joly makes a sympathetic little noise and says, “What happened?”

Grantaire scrubs a hand across his face. “Enjolras bought me a daffodil.”

“Like, a singular loose flower stem? That’s a little cheap, isn’t it?” Joly does not, in Grantaire’s opinion, sound concerned for the right reasons. 

“No, it’s-” Grantaire rotates the pot, looks closer. “No, it’s potted. Like, a whole daffodil plant in a really nice pot.”

“Weird,” Bossuet chimes in again. 

Grantaire suddenly feels a little defensive of his daffodil and its pot. “It’s not.”

“It is,” Musichetta says, sounding very much as though she just woke up. “Sweet, though.”

Grantaire buries his face in his hands. It  _ is  _ sweet. And confusing. And  _ awful.  _ “Just- Can you come out tonight?”

“Not tonight,” Joly says. “I have a massage. And I’m worried about my liver.”

Musichetta agrees solemnly. “I also have a massage.”

Everything in life is difficult. “Boss?”

“I don’t have a massage. I’m down.”

And so Grantaire and Bossuet go out, and Bossuet brings Courfeyrac, and Courf brings his weird roommate Marius, and Marius brings an inability to hold his liquor and a weird infatuation with some girl, and they all get wonderfully drunk. 

Drunk enough that Grantaire almost forgets how weird the past week had been.

Drunk enough that when Grantaire sees the wiry blond on the dance floor, sweaty and beautiful and  _ intense  _ in that essential way, he finds himself moving towards him, never mind that look on Courfeyrac’s face. 

(Which, whatever. Courfeyrac doesn’t get to say anything, not when Enjolras will never, ever,  _ ever _ want Grantaire the way Grantaire wants him.)

And so Grantaire talks to the blond, and learns the blond’s name, and promptly forgets the blond’s name because he’s busy calling him  _ Apollo  _ in his head, and lets the blond take him back to the bathroom and convince him to his knees, and sucks the blond’s dick, and lets the blond get a little too rough, and jerks himself off in the meanwhile. Because maybe he’s a shitty person or whatever, but when he doesn’t look up all the way--when all he can see is a flash of golden curls and golden skin to match--it’s almost enough, it’s almost right. And when the blond mutters praises when Grantaire does that thing with his tongue, they’re not so far off from what Enjolras says in Grantaire’s daydreams. And when the blond comes, Grantaire comes, too, because he could probably imagine Enjolras making a sound like that.

God, he’s a bad person.

Grantaire spits his mouthful of come into a wad of toilet paper and throws it in the toilet. “Cool,” he says, like a normal person, and clears his throat. “Great.” He gets to his feet.

The blond is looking at him strangely. Grantaire buries his face in his hands, just for a moment. “Do you-”

“No.” Whatever he’s going to say, ask, suggest, Grantaire doesn’t want it. He just kind of wants him to be gone, so that he can stop thinking about the fact that he totally just had sex while thinking dirty, dirty thoughts about his friend. His platonic, non-sexual friend.

Oh, he’s such an asshole. 

The blond edges around him in the stall, leaves, shoots a look over his shoulder as he does so.

But then, at least, Grantaire is alone. He breathes in, and out, and in, and out, and buttons his jeans back up, and tries not to think about the fucking daffodil on his table at home. 

Fuck.

He’s a bit of a mess.

A bit of a mess with friends waiting, though, so he fixes his shirt and wipes the corners of his mouth, just to be sure, and opens the stall door, and-

And stops in his tracks, because that’s Enjolras, the real Enjolras, curled up there on the grimy bathroom floor, his face buried in his knees. 

What the fuck.

“What the fuck?” Grantaire hears himself say, because apparently, the shock of seeing Enjolras mere meters away from where he was just sucking somebody off was enough to completely break his filter.

Enjolras looks up. Grantaire is pretty sure he’s been crying.

And oh, God, he must have heard. He must have heard Grantaire blowing that guy. 

Fuck.

Christ, maybe he traumatized him or something. He is awful…  _ uninvolved _ , to put it politely, and he’s so young, and-

Shit.

“Enjolras?”

He bites his lip, keeps his gaze just out of reach of Grantaire’s own. “I’m confused,” he says, so quiet Grantaire has to strain to hear it, and okay, good, that makes two of them. 

Grantaire hastily checks the mirror to make sure he doesn’t have anything…  _ unsavory _ , on his face. He’s good. “Enjolras, what are you doing here?” 

“Courf told me he was going out with you tonight. I finished my article early.”

“But-” Grantaire takes a moment to try and piece his thoughts together. “But you don’t even  _ like _ going out dancing.”

Enjolras sniffs, buries his nose back in his knees. “I’ve been trying to branch out,” he says, voice shaking, “I’ve been trying to be less… I’ve been trying to stop… I’ve been trying to do other things.” And Grantaire doesn’t even know what he did to have made Enjolras cry, but clearly, there’s something going on, and he may be frustrated in general, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want to fix it, need to fix it. 

After all, first and foremost, he loves him. 

Grantaire settles to the floor in front of Enjolras. “Seriously,” he says. “What’s up?”

“I don’t know what’s up!” Enjolras slams a fist to the floor.

Grantaire freezes. “Enj-”

“I don’t know what’s up! You tell me what’s up!” Enjolras can be, at times, a bit of a force of nature--God knows Grantaire’s been on the receiving end often enough. 

That’s nothing like now. Now, with Enjolras crumpled up on the floor of a club bathroom, eyes damp and chin trembling, he just looks horribly young and horribly sad. Grantaire feels a bit like he’s broken something very precious.

Grantaire gapes at him, willing himself to say something, anything.

Enjolras continues, but he’s back soft again, voice choked. “I thought- was I doing it wrong?”

Grantaire doesn’t know what’s going on. “Enjolras, I-”

“I thought you liked  _ me.” _

Oh. 

Okay.

It’s about that. 

“What, you’re mad because you wanted to keep me to yourself? Is that what this is about?” God, but wouldn’t that make sense? Or, no, it wouldn’t, really, but nothing tends to make sense anymore, and Grantaire is drunk, and right now, the idea that Enjolras likes the fact that Grantaire likes him is the best theory he has.

Enjolras blanches. “I’m mad,” he grits out, but he’s crying properly now, “Because I just walked in on you… on you  _ giving somebody a blowjob,  _ and I don’t even think you know them!”

“Oh, so you’re only in favor of sexual liberation in theory, is that it?” Grantaire’s a little angry too, now, because for Christ’s sake, Enjolras has no fucking right to demand… what, faithfulness? He’s got no right to ask for that and give nothing in return, it isn’t fair. “You’re jealous because I put my attention elsewhere for once?”

“I’m jealous because- because-” Enjolras scrubs across his eyes with the back of his hand, starts again. “I thought I was doing it right,” he whispers, like it’s some kind of confession; it probably would be, if only Grantaire could figure out what the hell Enjolras meant to do in the first place.

Grantaire groans, shuts his eyes for a moment. “Doing  _ what  _ right, Enjolras?”

Enjolras looks up, eyes wide. “I-” Somehow, it seems he didn’t expect Grantaire to ask the obvious question.

He raises his eyebrows, waits.

Enjolras just puts his face in his hands. “It’s stupid. I’m stupid.”

“Christ, Enj, you’re not stupid.”

“No, I-” He takes a deep breath. “It sounds stupid. Can you please just forget all of this?”

Grantaire wishes, just in that moment, that he could say  _ yes, sure, whatever you want.  _ Just so Enjolras will stop acting like this. Just so he can pretend to know what’s going on. But then he thinks of the past week, and the muffins, and the fucking daffodils on his kitchen table, and- “No, not really!”

Enjolras sighs. “It sounds  _ stupid,  _ Grantaire. Can’t you just…” Another one of those slow, deep breaths, the kind Combeferre has tried to introduce him to, lately--to apparent success. “Come on, R, it’s not like you don’t know. I’ve been… I’ve been making a fool of myself all week. And it’s alright if you don’t want anything to do with- with me, even though I thought you did and I wouldn’t have if I didn’t think that, honest, but you don’t have to make me  _ say  _ it.”

God, what Grantaire wouldn’t give to be as in-the-loop as Enjolras suspects him to be. “Enj, really, I don’t-” he says, but then he stops, because he’s frozen and his brain is whirring like crazy. 

Because Enjolras had paid for his dinner.

Because Enjolras had taken him out to the fucking  _ symphony,  _ and he’d worn what was, in retrospect, definitely a new tie. 

Because Enjolras had totally used his good tupperware when he brought Grantaire those muffins, and because they were still warm, so they weren’t extra like he’d said, and because they were Grantaire’s favorite.

Because Enjolras had been  _ blushing,  _ when he’d shown up with that stupid fucking flower.

“Have-” Grantaire swallows, tries to keep his voice from cracking. “Have you been  _ courting me?” _

“Fuck,” Enjolras grits out, and Grantaire doesn’t think he’s ever heard him say that before. “Fuck, listen, I-”

Grantaire listens.

Enjolras bursts into tears. 

And okay, Grantaire is only human. He’s tugging Enjolras in close for a hug before he can even think to think that he’s still pissed off, and Enjolras just lets him do it. Enjolras folds himself in against him and trembles and gets his tears and snot all over Grantaire’s shirt, and Grantaire can feel both their hearts beating against his ribs, and all he can think about is the fact that Enjolras was courting him.

Enjolras was courting him. Enjolras likes him. (Enjolras has some really messed up ideas about how modern romances work.) Enjolras  _ likes  _ him.

Enjolras likes him, and Grantaire sucked off another dude right in the middle of Enjolras’s weird wooing ritual.

Grantaire waits until Enjolras has pretty much stopped crying. “Hey,” he says, like the socially proficient young man that he is. “Were you really-”

“I wouldn’t have described it as  _ courting _ if given the choice,” Enjolras cuts in, voice muffled and watery. 

And see, now Grantaire is even more intrigued. “How would you have described it?”

Enjolras makes a frustrated noise against Grantaire’s chest. “I don’t  _ know.  _ I just… I really like you. I don’t really know how any of this works.”

Grantaire figures it’s probably time to take pity. “People don’t really court people anymore, you know.”

“I know.” He sounds miserable. 

“Yeah.”

They sit in silence for a long, long while. Grantaire’s ass is starting to get numb against the bathroom tile. Enjolras has been pressed up against him for so long that he thinks it may be entirely possible that he’s fallen asleep.

That is, until Enjolras clears his throat and says, “You gave a stranger a blowjob in a club bathroom,” in that soft, shaky voice of his. 

Grantaire swears under his breath. “I didn’t mean to- to mess with you, or anything. I didn’t know. I didn’t know you were fucking  _ courting  _ me, of all things.”

Enjolras pulls away to look up at him, but stays close. “Honest?”

“Are you serious?” Grantaire loves Enjolras, God knows he does, but he’s just so thick sometimes. “That’s what you think I’d do if I found out you were… interested in that? Me?”

“Then-”

“Christ, fuck, Enjolras, I’ve been in love with you for years, seriously. Years. You think I’d be sucking off strangers if I knew I was being  _ courted _ ?”

Grantaire watches as Enjolras’s face, shockingly open, flickers through emotions just as quickly as Combeferre flicks through his Rolodex when he’s doing something Important. And there’s something like joy, somewhere in the middle, but he settles on something shuttered (shattered?) and hesitant. “You’re drunk.”

Grantaire winces. “I-” And there’s no fairly  _ contesting  _ that, but that isn’t what this is about, that has nothing to do with this, this is serious and this is happening now and Enjolras is still just fucking  _ looking  _ at him. And it’s just so important that Enjolras  _ gets  _ this, because this could be it, this could be the thing that makes him realize that liking Grantaire is a bad idea, and then he’ll be done with him forever, and there’ll be no more awkward courting, and- “I-”

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says, and his face, his voice, are soft again. 

“I still mean it,” he says, and he’s feeling a little choked up now, too. “Enjolras, I still-”

Enjolras reaches a hand out, slow as anything, and brushes a curl out of Grantaire’s eyes. “Promise?” he asks. 

Grantaire can only bring himself to nod. 

Enjolras’s hand is still lingering somewhere near his face. 

He swallows. “Do you want to leave?” he asks. “There might be someplace open.” Someplace, he says, because it’s not like he wants anything, not besides what he has in front of him and still a little tear-stained, but he needs to leave this fucking club and he needs to stay with Enjolras and that’s the only thing he can think of, right now.

“Okay.”

And so Grantaire texts Bossuet, and Courfeyrac for good measure, and he fumbles his hand into Enjolras’s once they hit the crowds of the club, and then they’re outside on the street and their hands are still together and Enjolras looks wide-eyed and glowing and fucking gorgeous beneath the streetlight. 

He wonders when Enjolras is going to tug his hand away, but he never really does.

They’re on the Metro before Grantaire realizes he was supposed to be looking for  _ somewhere that’s open.  _

Enjolras is leaning against him, just a little, and he’s murmuring some story about Saint-Just, barely loud enough to be heard over the rush of wheels over tracks, except for that they’re so close together. 

It’s not until Enjolras stands and pulls Grantaire to his feet that Grantaire realizes he’s not sure where they’re going. 

“Where are we going?” he asks, as Enjolras tugs him through the passages and out onto the street. 

Strangely enough, Enjolras flushes pink, keeps his gaze on the ground. “I thought… I thought, your place, maybe.”

“Oh,” Grantaire says. His mouth feels very dry.

“We don’t have to,” Enjolras says.

Grantaire can’t really think, not right now. Because if this is… If Enjolras means what he thinks he means… 

Enjolras just watches him, expectant, until- “Oh! No! Not like that, not tonight, God, I’m sorry, I-” He tugs his hand from Grantaire’s. “I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant, I just meant that we could-”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Of course, Grantaire says, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting. Because even if yeah, realistically, he knows that Enjolras would never fucking sleep with him, that doesn’t mean he had to be so fucking glaringly obvious about it. Not when Grantaire was floating on a little bit of hope, there. “Sure, yeah, no, it’s fine.”

And he’d thought he’d done a pretty good job concealing the fucking  _ ache  _ that came with the way Enjolras had pulled his hand away, but evidently he had not, because Enjolras stops, frowns, turns to face him. “I just mean-” he swallows. “I just mean, you’re drunk. Really drunk. And I don’t know what you really mean. Want. Any of it.”

“Oh.”

Enjolras convinces his hand into Grantaire’s. 

“Okay, yeah,” Grantaire says. “My place.”

They go to Grantaire’s place. Grantaire fumbles the key into the lock and gestures vaguely to the couch and goes to brush his teeth for a good, long time, because it feels horribly, unspeakably wrong to have Enjolras in his apartment and some other man’s cum on his breath. 

When he opens the bathroom door, Enjolras is sitting on the couch and staring at the daffodil and the tupperware he’d left on the coffee table. (Grantaire has a heart-stopping moment of panic before he remembers that it doesn’t matter if Enjolras sees how much it mattered, because he already knows, he already knows.)

“You-” Enjolras clears his throat. “You kept it.”

Grantaire frowns. “Course I kept it. What, you thought I threw it away?”

He shrugs. “I wasn’t sure.”

Grantaire cautiously sits down on the couch beside him. “I liked it,” he says. “I liked that you brought it over. I thought it was sweet.”

Enjolras looks over at him, then. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He swallows. “I liked the muffins, too.”

He flushes pink again. “I have to confess that Combeferre had to help me with them. I’m not very good at baking. The first batch turned out… quite bad.”

Grantaire huffs a laugh at that, because all of this is so ridiculous he’d be sure he was dreaming if it weren’t for the fact that none of his dreams have ever been so fucking  _ complicated.  _ “What, you mean you’re not the promising young chef I took you for?”

Enjolras quirks a smile, and it’s hesitant, and a little awkward, but Grantaire is pretty sure he’s never seen anything so wonderful in his life. “I’m afraid not.”

He bites back a grin of his own. “Drat. Fooled again.”

They go quiet again. Enjolras’s gaze sinks back down to his own hands. 

“Do you want coffee?” Grantaire says, for lack of anything else to say.

Enjolras looks back over at him. “I-” He picks at Grantaire’s upholstery. “It’s pretty late for coffee,” he says. “I thought maybe…” He fades off, looks at Grantaire expectantly as though Grantaire has any idea what he thought.

Grantaire waits.

“I thought maybe we could just get some sleep?” he says, at long last.

Grantaire breathes. Clears his throat. Gathers his nerves. “Do you want to stay the night?” he asks.

Enjolras shrugs.

“Enj?”

“I thought, maybe, yeah?”

Grantaire nods. “Okay. Okay.”

“Thanks,” Enjolras says, as though Grantaire’s doing him a favor or something. He stands. “Could I borrow something to sleep in?”

“Of course, yeah, sure, let me,” Grantaire stands, does his very best to keep his voice steady. “I’ll find you something.” He stumbles off to his bedroom before he can think too hard about the look on Enjolras’s face and the fact that  _ he thought he’d stay the night  _ and the fact that he’s going to be wearing Grantaire’s pajamas like that’s a normal thing that just happens. 

He riffles through his drawers and tries to find something that won’t drop right off of Enjolras’s skinny little frame. He settles on his very softest undershirt and a pair of pajama pants with a drawstring, and he hands them to Enjolras and tells him that there’s a spare toothbrush in the medicine cabinet, and then he goes and gets changed in his own room, and then-

And then Enjolras comes out of the bathroom and Grantaire stops breathing entirely. Because he’s just…  _ there,  _ all backlit by the bathroom light, there in Grantaire’s old clothes and with his hair pulled up in a crooked little bun and he’s the most beautiful person Grantaire has ever seen in his life.

“Cool,” Grantaire breathes. “Great. Alright.”

Enjolras shuffles a foot on the ground and has the audacity to look sheepish.

“So-”

Enjolras nods.

“So,” Grantaire says. “So, um, so the couch pulls out, if you want to sleep on that, and I could get you sheets, and blankets, and pillows, and things, of course. Or if you wanted to, there’s the bed-”

“Yes.” Enjolras cuts him off, then flushes, high in the cheeks. “Yes, the bed, please.”

“Oh,” he manages. “With-”

“Yes.”

And who is Grantaire to refuse him anything? “Okay,” he says. “Okay, the bed.”

They go to bed. Enjolras slips beneath Grantaire’s covers with unimaginable ease, and Grantaire has to mentally kick his brain back into action at the sight. But then it’s fine, he’s got this, and he settles into his side of the bed and his hands are barely even shaking so that’s pretty much a win.

They’re not touching, but Grantaire can feel the warmth of Enjolras’s skin just centimeters away.

He turns off the lights before he can stare too long. 

“Goodnight, Grantaire,” Enjolras says. Whispers, really.

Grantaire swallows. “Night, Enj.”

And he isn’t expecting to fall asleep--definitely not fast, and possibly not at all--but he does, somehow, and it’s easy.

Just before he does, he’s pretty sure he feels Enjolras shift a little closer.

 

* * *

 

Grantaire wakes in the morning with a pounding hangover and Enjolras asleep and pressed close against his front. He’d take the time to appreciate that second part a bit more, of course, or at least fucking consider it, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s seriously going to throw up.

He fumbles his way out of the blankets and out of Enjolras’s grasp and out of bed and stumbles to the bathroom and almost throws up but then doesn’t. He wishes he had, really, he thinks as he clutches the toilet bowl, because at least then it would be over with, but it’s hardly under his control. 

By the time his stomach’s settled itself and Grantaire’s brushed his teeth, just to be sure, and returned to his room, Enjolras is awake and sitting on the bed and staring down at his hands. 

Grantaire sits down beside him.

“How are you feeling?” Enjolras asks. He won’t meet Grantaire’s eye.

He groans, scrubs a hand over his face. “Pretty shitty,” he admits. “Pretty hungover.”

Enjolras bites his lip. “You were pretty drunk,” he says. He’s still wearing Grantaire’s clothes--the collar of the shirt has stretched over his shoulder; Grantaire can see a little mole on his collarbone.

“Yeah.”

Enjolras takes a deep breath. “I know I probably shouldn’t have stayed the night,” he says. “I should have exercised better judgement, and I shouldn’t have simply invited myself.” Grantaire nearly butts in there, because seriously, seriously, it was fine, it was- “However, I had to-” he cuts off, clears his throat.

Grantaire waits.

Enjolras fiddles with the drawstring of his pants. “I don’t know if… if you remember what happened.”

As if Grantaire could fucking forget. As if he could forget the look on Enjolras’s face. As if he could forget the fact that he’d been fucking  _ courting him.  _ As if. “I remember.”

“Right, okay.” Another breath. “Right, so, you said, you said… You said-” He seems… stuck, almost. “You said-”

And suddenly, suddenly, Grantaire knows what he’s talking about. “I said I loved you,” he hears himself say.

“You said you loved me,” Enjolras echoes. 

And Grantaire waits, then, for something to happen. For Enjolras to kiss him, or for Enjolras to turn him away, or for Enjolras to fucking  _ say something.  _ He waits, gaze fixed on the floorboards, but then nothing happens, and he turns, and-

Enjolras has got the back of his hand pressed to his mouth and a horribly pinched look on his face and what look like tears in his eyes that he’s resolutely holding back.

Grantaire doesn’t even know what he did wrong. “Enj-”

“It’s fine,” Enjolras chokes out. “It’s- I understand, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it, I-” he stands, takes another one of those deep, deep breaths (and wow, really, he’s really applying Combeferre’s de-stressing advice, good for him). “I kind of knew this was going to happen, so-” He shrugs.

Grantaire is pretty sure his whole heart is breaking. “Enj-”

“Really, really, it’s fine. You were drunk.”

“I said I meant it,” he says, and he reaches out for Enjolras’s hand. Enjolras doesn’t pull away, lets him take it. “I promised.”

“You were  _ drunk,”  _ he says. “You can take it back, it’s okay.”

“I don’t want to take it back!” That’s fucking ridiculous. He can’t help but to tighten his grip on Enjolras’s hand. “Enjolras,” he says. He’s not quite sure what to say after that. 

His head is still pounding.

Enjolras takes a step closer. When Grantaire looks up at him, there’s something soft and confused on his face. “You don’t?”

“I love you,” Grantaire says, because Enjolras- Because Enjolras was fucking  _ courting  _ him, and now he’s saying shit that doesn’t make sense like maybe Grantaire would want to take it back, and if he leaves now Grantaire doesn’t know what he’ll do with himself. He hears his own voice crack. “I told you.”

Enjolras sits back down on the bed. “Really?”

Grantaire nods. “Really.” He swallows. “For, like, ever.”

Enjolras lets his head drop down against Grantaire’s shoulder. “Okay,” he says.

Grantaire shuts his eyes and slowly, gently, wraps an arm around Enjolras’s shoulders. Slowly, because he wouldn’t be shocked if Enjolras startled; softly, because he’s never met anyone he’s wanted to be so soft with as Enjolras.

He leans into him, melts into him.

They stay like that for a good, long while. Grantaire rests his head against Enjolras’s and breathes in deep and tries to figure out what kind of shampoo he’s smelling. Enjolras runs his fingers, delicate and bony and careful, over all the creases and curves of Grantaire’s hand. 

Grantaire’s just deciding that yeah, he could probably just stay like this, exactly like this, forever, when Enjolras moves, drops Grantaire’s hand, picks his head up from Grantaire’s shoulder.

“Enj?”

Enjolras kisses him. 

It’s neither brief nor terribly long. Not a peck, per se, but neither a french kiss. Just a soft press of lips to Grantaire’s, and a moment’s stillness, and then a withdrawal, just as soft. 

Grantaire stares at him, struggles to get his voice to work. “Y-Yeah?”

Enjolras nods.

It’s all Grantaire can do to kiss him back--really, really kiss him. He takes his face in his hands and leans in and kisses him. 

Enjolras lets out a stifled, choked moan and opens his mouth and clutches tight to the back of Grantaire’s shirt. He kisses sloppily, cautiously, fumbling; his hands are shaking. When Grantaire lets one hand twist in his curls and the other slip up beneath Enjolras’s shirt to rest at his ribs, Enjolras gasps, breaks the kiss, buries his face in Grantaire’s neck. 

“Alright?” Grantaire asks.

He feels Enjolras nod. “I-” he flexes his hands in Grantaire’s shirt. “I haven’t ever done this before,” he whispers. Grantaire can feel his breath, hot on his neck.

“We don’t have to do anything else,” Grantaire murmurs against his hair. “We don’t have to do this.”

Enjolras shakes his head fast. “No, I mean, just, I haven’t… I haven’t done  _ this  _ before. I haven’t-”

He hasn’t kissed anyone before he kissed Grantaire. 

Grantaire draws in a deep, shaking breath and pulls Enjolras closer. “Do-”

“I  _ want  _ this,” Enjolras whispers. “I want-”

Grantaire gently, gently convinces his head up. “Yeah?”

He nods.

“Okay,” Grantaire says, and presses him down to the mattress.

Enjolras is already hard. He whimpers when Grantaire slips a thigh between his legs and he keeps kissing back but when Grantaire presses in and gives him something to really grind on he mostly just moans and gets distracted.

No matter. Grantaire shifts, kisses down his jaw until he’s at the base of Enjolras’s throat, and when he bites down, sucks a mark, Enjolras keens and bucks up and Grantaire can feel his pulse jackhammering beneath his skin. 

“What do you want?” Grantaire asks.

Enjolras curls his fingers in Grantaire’s hair and looks up at him with wide, wide eyes and kisses him again. 

Grantaire can hardly breathe. “What do you-”

And then Enjolras is pushing him down the bed. Not shoving, not at all, just-

He’s got a hand in his hair and he’s still fucking  _ looking  _ at Grantaire like that and oh, yes, yes, God, okay.

He settles between Enjolras’s thighs and just has to… just has to take a minute to press his forehead to Enjolras’s hip and breathe. “You’re sure?” he asks. 

“God, fuck, Grantaire, please,” Enjolras gasps, and yeah, okay, that’s enough for him. 

He undoes the drawstring, shucks his pants down, throws them somewhere off the bed, and then all he can do is watch as Enjolras rids himself of his shirt, exposing soft skin and gentle angles, and then he’s staring back at Grantaire like he wants something else.

“Yeah?” Grantaire manages.

“You too?”

Grantaire fingers the edge of his tee shirt. “What, you want-”

“Please?”

And really, who is he to deny Enjolras anything, anything at all?

He undresses quickly, his hands clumsy and uncooperative, and it’s like he can feel Enjolras’s eyes on him. When he looks up again, Enjolras-

Enjolras has reached down to palm himself, his eyes locked on Grantaire’s chest. He jolts his hand away when he sees that Grantaire is watching, but God, just that moment will be frozen in Grantaire’s mind for-fucking-ever. 

“Sorry,” Enjolras says, but he’s still looking at Grantaire like Grantaire’s the hottest person he’s ever seen. 

(No accounting for taste, but, then again, Grantaire doesn’t really care about anyone else’s opinion but Enjolras’s, so…)

“‘S fine,” Grantaire chokes out. “Um. Blowjob?”

Enjolras nods. “Please.” He says it again, then, like Grantaire needs more convincing, or any convincing at all. “Please.”

Grantaire fits himself between Enjolras’s legs and takes Enjolras’s cock in his mouth.

Enjolras moans like he’s never known satisfaction before in his life and he’d finally got it. Grantaire realizes with a shock that the simile isn’t far off. 

He lets himself get into it--pressing just a bit too far forwards, running his tongue around his cock, twisting his hand around the base. The other hand, he’s got pressed between his own legs, because this is Enjolras’s cock he’s got in his mouth, here, and that’s-

Holy shit, he’s got Enjolras’s cock in his mouth. His rhythm falters, and he ruts against the mattress with a groan. Fuck, fuck. 

He can smell Enjolras fucking  _ everywhere  _ around him, even on the sheets, and oh, God, oh, God. 

He shuts his eyes and takes it all in and relishes in the scrape of Enjolras’s fingers in his hair. 

It’s a good long while before he realizes that Enjolras is talking. He realizes he’s zoned out a little, too, all too caught up in  _ Enjolras-Enjolras-Enjolras-Enjolras  _ to stay in his right mind. He blinks his eyes open and finds himself looking, once more, at smooth golden skin and golden hair and the jut of bony hips. He clears his mind enough to listen to the rush of words above him, and-

Oh.

Oh, God.

It’s a steady river of  _ God, Grantaire, fuck, oh, God, you’re- you’re beautiful, you’re the hottest person I’ve ever seen, oh, you’re, oh, fuck, Grantaire, Grantaire, please, you’re amazing, you’re so fucking hot, Grantaire, please, Grantaire, I- _

And then, right there in the middle, he gasps out, “Grantaire, God, fuck, oh, I love you.”

And Grantaire comes.

He comes, his head pressed to Enjolras’s hip, Enjolras’s hands in his hair, and he’s panting for breath and he’s pretty sure he might be crying but more than anything he just needs to hear Enjolras say that again.

He lets his eyes flutter shut, contented by Enjolras’s hot, smooth skin beneath his cheek. 

He comes to to fingers brushing hair out of his eyes and tears off his cheeks and a frantic, jerking motion so, so close. 

He opens his eyes.

Enjolras is jerking off, panting for breath and watching Grantaire like he’s the only thing that’s ever mattered and ever will matter, and Grantaire would feel bad for leaving him hanging except for the way that he’s being held close and tender against his hip.

“Enj,” Grantaire murmurs, and Enjolras gasps. He shifts, presses a kiss to Enjolras’s stomach. And then he’s working his way back up the bed, pressing kisses to soft, warm, sweaty skin, and when he gets to the pillow, he kisses Enjolras and slides his hand beside Enjolras’s on Enjolras’s cock, and then Enjolras is jerking against him and coming.

“Oh,” Enjolras says, just before he does.

After, once they’ve both recovered, they lie together on the bed. Grantaire still has come on his thighs. It’s drying, getting tacky. It’s a little gross. 

Enjolras has got his arms wrapped around him, though, and his head on his shoulder, so he can’t exactly  _ move _ , can he. 

“Hey,” Grantaire says, twisting one of Enjolras’s curls around his finger.

Enjolras opens his eyes. “Mm?”

“Did you mean it?” he asks, even though he’s pretty sure he knows the answer.

Enjolras just nods against him. “Yeah. For a while.”

Grantaire tries to contain the fact that every cell in his body feels like it’s so fucking full of joy it might burst. “Promise?” he asks.

“Promise,” Enjolras says, and when he kisses Grantaire, he’s smiling so wide their teeth clack together and Grantaire doesn’t even mind.

**Author's Note:**

> accidentally writes two "failed courtship" fics at same time lmao i am a national treasure
> 
> (but i started this one like four months ago and promptly forgot about it so it's okay don't worry about it)
> 
> also stay tuned for the other one it's canon era which means it's good
> 
> also i am an automatic, systematic, hydromatic, comment-fueled machine. keep me running, baby!


End file.
